If you're interesting in reading a painfully long post on leasing check it out here:

https://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=21593323

1) Elon Musk it a genius. I’m a GM guy but what Elon has done to the auto industry is remarkable. I’m cheering for Tesla. I hope they can sell enough to make the business model work and continue to operate for a long time. Elon has single handedly changed the auto industry forever, both in terms of electrification and autonomy.

A few years ago I was skeptical that level 4 and 5 autonomy would happen quickly but it's here now. Teslas latest updates to their automous driving is impressive. Tesla put out a video a few weeks ago where the car was driving around handling all the stop signs and lights. That's amazing. Elon thinks Uber and Lyft will go away because everyone that owns a Tesla will be able to put their cars to work driving people around during the day and those cars won’t need drivers. They will operate completely autonomously. You may doubt that, but the dude launched a roadster into space.

2) Another thought on autonomous vehicles… what effect will it have on auto sales? Until a recently I thought it would have a slow (perhaps 15 year) effect on the market but perhaps it the impact will be sooner and quite dramatic. I thought that there was no way my wife and I would give up our cars, and that if anything our 14 y.o. son would soon be driving and would want a car of his own. That was until a recent Saturday morning when he showed up in the kitchen panicked that he was going to be late for baseball practice. Before I could offer him a ride he said it was OK because his Uber was going to be there in 3 minutes. Instead of asking mom or dad for a ride he got an uber. All it takes is a phone and a change in mentality. In an instant I realized that we might end up staying a 2 car family. The question left in my mind is how long will it take for those autonomous cars to be driverless.

3) People that buy brand new Escalades can afford them. I often saw an opinion expressed here that the people that buy really expensive vehicles can’t really afford them. After pulling credit on many hundreds of individuals it’s clear that how much money is a lot to someone isn’t a lot to someone else. For many people a 1500 a month Escalade payment is the same thing as a 300 payment in terms of a payment to income ratio. That’s not a bad thing. It’s not drug dealers that are buying them. It’s successful businessmen, CEOs, CFOs, Financial Advisors and Physicians. I have a vivid memory from 8 ½ years ago of an older woman who, with her husband, sold a company that made bullets. She wrote out a check for an Escalade for 88K. It was effortless for her, like she was writing a check for groceries. Someone has to buy them new so that the rest of us can pay half price in three years.

4)The Jeep Wrangler needs more competition. The Ford Bronco might be cool. I’m sad GM hasn’t produced a legitimate contender in the dedicated off-road segment.

5) Dealerships are the worst. There is fraud that happens at nearly every dealership in the country. While there are lots of honest and good people working at dealerships, I don’t have a lot of faith in the industry as a whole.

6) Watch Carvana’s stock price.



People are anxious to have a vending-machine-like experience when buying a car just so they don’t have to put up with obnoxious dealership tactics. I haven't been to a Carvana location to see how this work in person but I'd like to.